Maddy Myers

Evo 2018’s Dragon Ball FighterZ Finals Played Out Like A Glorious Anime Finale

After Dominique “SonicFox” McLean placed third instead of his usual first in the Injustice 2 finals earlier this weekend at Evo 2018, his fans wondered if the multi-game phenom was slipping. His Injustice 2 skills had only wavered because he was focusing on Dragon Ball FighterZ, right? But then, during a DBFZ exhibition match against…

Soulcalibur VI’s creative team just revealed on the Evo 2018 arena stage that Astaroth and Seong Mi-Na will appear in the game’s roster. You can watch the trailer here. The game comes out on October 19, 2018.

Bayonetta Players Battle Through The Boos At Evo 2018’s Smash 4 Finals

Several Bayonetta players made it into the Super Smash Brothers 4 finals at Evo 2018 this year, although surprisingly, last year’s Evo winner and Bayonetta player Saleem “Salem” Akiel Young wasn’t one of them. Salem’s upset last year coincided with the longstanding debate over whether Bayonetta’s combo-linking abilities make her an unfair opponent, and after…

Two ‘Gods’ Of Melee Get Hit Hard By Mere Mortals In Evo 2018 Pools

On a good day, Super Smash Brothers: Melee champion Adam “Armada” Lindgren seems unbeatable. Last year, at Evo 2017, he took home the top prize for the second time at the world’s biggest fighting game event. This year, long before Top 8, he got knocked into the losers bracket by Melee up-and-comer James “Swedish Delight”…

Esports Player’s Use Of Homophobic Slur Sets Off Unexpectedly Long Debate

This week, esports host Frankie Ward won “Presenter of the Year” at the UK Esports Awards, and she used her acceptance speech to make a pledge: “There is no room for homophobic or racist or misogynist language in the esports industry.” Her pledge follows on the heels of a week-long debate among esports stars and…

YouTuber’s Board Game Tutorials Teach The Rules Wrong, And Way Better

Jeff Kornberg’s YouTube channel, The Dragon’s Tomb, does not stand out from the throng of other channels hosting tutorials for board games. Like his peers, Kornberg explains the rules in a slow, gentle voice with frequent cutaways to each game’s pieces, cards, and setup. The difference between Kornberg’s channel and the others is that every…

We Talk About Queerness In Games, From Overwatch Ships To E3 Smooches

We celebrated Pride this week at Kotaku with stories from queer staffers about Street Fighter ships, queer fandoms in Overwatch and in K-Pop, and our desire to see queer characters survive and thrive in the games we play. Before we take down the beautiful rainbow logos that festooned the site this week in celebration, we…

The Street Fighter V Tutorial Has Me Convinced Ryu And Ken Hooked Up

Street Fighter V came out two years ago, and I still can’t stop thinking about how homoerotic the tutorial is. I don’t know who wrote the English translation for the tutorial, which features young rivals Ken and Ryu sweating through a workout under the direction of their master Gouken, but I can’t let it go.…

How Pro Gamers Live Now: Curfews, Personal Chefs, And All Of It On Camera

Every day is Christmas at the Philadelphia Fusion esports mansion. The team’s marketing and content director Hung Tran gestured to the towering decorated pine tree to the right of the front door by way of explaining the joke: the pro gamers who live here get whatever they want and do whatever they want. But Christmas…

The Last Of Us 2 Actors Recount Their Motion-Capture Kiss

The Last of Us 2 actors Ashley Johnson (as Ellie) and Shannon Woodward (as Dina) described the motion-capture experience of their smooch scene at an E3 Coliseum panel this afternoon. The mo-cap cameras made the kiss unexpectedly tricky, according to Woodward: “There was a lot of sticking. I’d be in the middle of it and…

Ubisoft showed off a look at Donkey Kong in the upcoming single-player DLC for Mario + Rabbids at E3. The trailer features some gameplay in which D joins up with several Rabbids, including the Princess Peach-inspired Rabbid, to face off against a yeti-like foe in a DK tie. It’s out June 26 on the Switch.

We’re Liveblogging Square Enix’s E3 Press Conference [Update: It’s Over]

It’s Monday morning, which means we’re ready to kick off E3’s most packed day of press conferences. First up is Square Enix. We’ve already seen a few of its games, but what else does the Final Fantasy maker have in store for us? You can watch the press conference here or follow along with our…

New Jersey Added A Last-Minute Esports Betting Ban And No One Knows Why

On May 14, 2018, when the Supreme Court overturned the ban on sports betting, New Jersey legislators hurried to update the state’s 2014 sports betting law. Back in 2014, Jersey lawmakers had passed a law permitting sports betting at casinos and racetracks, but the law couldn’t go into effect until the Supreme Court overturned the…

Zoning In Overwatch Can Actually Work

Who among us has not insisted that we were “zoning” after spending an ultimate attack in Overwatch that didn’t hit anyone on the other team? Of course it was your intention all along to scatter the other team away from the area—actually killing them is for meatheads. We’re refined gamers, just like DPS/flex player Hae-seong…

It’s A Good Time For A Street Fighter III Revival

The recently released Street Fighter 30th Anniversary collection has led me to playing a lot more Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. I wasn’t expecting this. The new collection rounds up 12 Street Fighter games from the past three decades and allows ranked and casual online matches for four of them: Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Super Turbo,…

Here’s A Textbook Wall Bang, Which Is Totally Not A Sex Thing

Call of Duty World League matches move fast, especially in a mode like Hardpoint, which involves instantaneous respawns for both teams. With waves of enemies pouring at each other in constant droves, it’s easy to blow past the more impressive shots that pros pull off—like wall bangs, which require some ingenuity and planning. Every Call…

What We Still Love About Cowboy Bebop, 20 Years Later

Cowboy Bebop first aired from April 3 to June 26 in 1998, and two decades later, it’s still one of the greats. Compete staffer Eric Van Allen started up a rewatch of the show and inspired all of the Cowboy Bebop fans on Kotaku and Compete’s staff to reminisce about this foundational and groundbreaking anime.…

Street Fighter Footsies Explained In Two Minutes

Street Fighter V pro Justin Wong placed first in the Canada Cup Master Series tournament with the new character Falke, described by some pros as “the worst character in the game.” The reason Wong can succeed with Falke is due to his expert defensive play, particularly when it comes to engaging in the back-and-forth duet…

A Frighteningly Accurate Analysis Of Mario Kart‘s Politics

Wario is a libertarian. Bowser is a fascist. We know this about them, in our hearts, but no one has ever sat down and categorized the political leanings of the Mushroom Kingdom’s best-known residents. Art House Politics has put together a video demarcating the political leanings of each of the characters in Mario Kart 8,…

Esports Gambling Officials Are Ready For It To Be Legal

This week, the Supreme Court overturned the ban on sports betting, giving states the ability to legalize it if they want to. Esports betting was already legal in Nevada; in 2016, the Downtown Grand Casino offered the first legal esports wagers on League of Legends. Operators and regulators in esports betting have been cleaning up…